Ramzi Ab Rashid (0318716) Theory of Machines & Mechanism (TOMM) Assignment

THEORY OF MACHINES AND MECHANISMS-ASSIGNMENT

FOUR CYLINDER ENGINE

A four cylinder engine or called the inline engine is an engine consisting an internal combustion
component. Elsewhere, an internal combustion engine are defined as the engine where the chemical
energy (Chemical) is released inside the combustion chamber of the engine itself. On the other hand, the
external combustion engine imply a concept in which the chemical change take place outside of the
engine.

The major applications of the internal engine includes in a wide usage of vehicles, railroad and in
other industry, used in the marines and the in the aircraft systems. Engines provides the substantial power
or energy require by motors or other means of applicable machine in order to produce energy. In the
industry we have had the electric energy supply through battery and through the direct circuit but the
main problem is that they are not very simple and light to integrate into the design, or even if can be
integrated in the machines, it depletes in a fast rate. This means that the most reliable and compact thing
to generate energy efficiently for the vehicles is the internal combustion engines.

In four cylinder engine, the shaft and piston were placed and designed as to balance each other
in the reaction as such every power generated and produced would give the best possible energy equation
to ease their movement.

Figure 1- Slider Crank Mechanism in an Engine.[1]

Ramzi Ab Rashid (0318716) Theory of Machines & Mechanism (TOMM) Assignment

In an engine, referring to the figure 1 above, we can see an illustrated slider crank
mechanism. In an engine, it consists of 4 main component for the slider crank mechanism which
is the piston and cylinder, the guides, the connecting rod and the crank. From the diagram also, we
can see theres four link that is the connecting rod, frame, cross-head and the crank. The guides
functions as to guide the mechanism to move in the horizontal way to the piston at the piston
cylinder. The internal combustion of the engine occurs at the cylinder.

Thus from the diagram, four of the same components were designed for the engine where
in each of the engine consist of four cylinder hence consist four of the slider crank mechanism for
the engine. Somehow, during the operational status of the engine, there are vibrations that occurs
during the process. These vibrations and energy loss-factor occurs due to the piston movement in
the cylinder. As the piston and the crank need to be in-line with the other three crank system, a
substantial positioning of these four piston to the crank and the crank position itself would improve
the efficiency and decrease the vibration of the engine block.

Figure 2-Illustration of the engine piston.[2]

Figure 2 illustrates the positioning of the four cylinder engine piston. From the diagram,
we can see that two of the piston has been not in line with the other two piston in which are
purposely counter both the inertia from the subsequent opposing piston. From right, the furthest
piston on the right named piston 1 counter the neighbor piston two, and the same happens in the
opposite piston. From the Figure also, as we can see, theres a rotational functions of the shaft.
Thus, also from the figure, balancing shafts were added to counter the unbalanced forces
originating from the rotation of the shafts which is the resulting force of high upwards forces at
the Top Dead Center (TDC) and low downwards forces at Bottom Dead Center (BDC) in the
Ramzi Ab Rashid (0318716) Theory of Machines & Mechanism (TOMM) Assignment

engine. By having the balancing shafts, the excess vibrations and rotations are countered producing
less vibrations and increases the efficiency of the engine.

GEAR TRAIN

By default, gear train is a mechanical system in which created and formed by applying
gears on a certain frame in which the teeth of the gears were engaged with each other at a certain
location. The teeth of the gear enables the rotational of the circular gear to roll on each of them
with less probability of slipping and provides a smoother transmission from one another.

For the gears, basically there will be divided into a couple of group that is the driver and
the driven gears. As it generally means, the driving gears does the responsibility of driving the
other gear while transferring the output (mostly rotational) through their teeth. The differences in
diameter and the number of teeth gave the opportunity and selections of different angular speed.

Figure 3-Gearbox of 5 speed transmission of Volkswagen 2009[3]

Gear train systems has vastly used in the automotive sectors, in which we would say that
the most common use was as a gearbox in a vehicle. Figure 3 above shows an example of a gear
train in which includes the 5-speed transmission system for a Volkswagen car. Roughly, we can
see that there are many gears in the system. From the figure, the gears in the gear train actually
have differences in diameter and the number of their teeth. This is closely related to the differences
in speed when the gear ratio are changed by changing the gears in the car.
Ramzi Ab Rashid (0318716) Theory of Machines & Mechanism (TOMM) Assignment

Figure 4-Power transmission diagram of a vehicle system [4]

There are a few types of gear train that can be classified into four major group that is the
simple gear, compound gear, reversed gear and the epicyclic gear system in which have their own
advantages and disadvantages. In a vehicle, we would like to transfer the energy generated by the
piston onto the shafts by creating a gear system in which would allow us to integrate the rotational
torque for the vehicle to move. In our case for example, the torque produced will be used to
generate a rotational force onto the tire and move the vehicle. The epicyclic gear would be
considered too complicated and would cause the shaft to vibrate and creates more friction as it will
have a few more gear inside it. Somehow, the planetary gear would also be harder to maintain and
the energy integration will be more complicated due to the design.

Basically theres two type of transmission (gearbox/gear train) system which is manual and
automated transmission. In term of efficiency, the manual transmission was traditionally more
efficient than a gearbox system. Somehow as technologies improves, the more modernized
automated gearbox has been more efficient than the manual transmission and provides more
comforting control over the speed.

I would suggest to use the compound gear system in which would allow us to connect the
gears with on shaft and provide a variations of the size and diameter of the gears attached to the
compound gear in which would give us an edge on providing different speeds of rotation to the
tire shaft. In the systems, I would suggest to use six different size of the gear where each of them
will provide a different number of teeth per pitch as well as diameter. Apart from that, the
suggested driven gear with different diameter and number of teeth would also will be attached to
the same shaft originating from the tire of the mobile connecting it to the driving gear of the
cylinder shafts and its rotating piston. This will provide a much better transition stage from the
energy source (engine) to the transmission control. On the other hand, there will be a driven gear
which would be free in line with the shaft as if to connect with the driving gear. The driven gear
will then be connected to the automobiles tire and movement shaft in which known as the output
Ramzi Ab Rashid (0318716) Theory of Machines & Mechanism (TOMM) Assignment

shaft. Thus, only one gear with s specifically designed size that suits the gear system connected
to the engine shall be used.

The power generated by the transmission are the multiplication of the angular speed to the
driven gear and the amount of torque provided by the engine through the shaft. This is also known
as the output power for the system. Thus by manipulating the angular speed of the driven gear, the
power of the output shall also be manipulated and in this term, the speed of the mobile.

In addition to that, gear ratio should also be considered. As the gear ratio increases, the
amount of torque also increases and vice versa. Gear ratio is the input speed of the driven by the
driving gear.

The speed ratio formula for the compound gear are:

N refers to the respective speed of the respective gears

T refers to the respective number of teeth of the respective gears

In neutral position of the gear, all the gear were in mesh while the only the gears involving
the reversing gear will not be in mesh with the system. Aside from that, all the gears on the output
shaft shall revolve freely around them and the gear which are on in-touch will be fixed. Thus, from
this, no driving force or angular rotation shall be produced.

During the first gear, the least teeth gear on the shaft are locked into position touching the
main shaft which will provide a drive onto the largest gear on the main shaft providing a high
amount of torque but low speed to the system. From second to 5th gear, the gear ratio keep on
increasing , making the torque driven onto the shaft decreasing while the speed of the substantial
gear shall increases. During fourth and fifth gear phase, it is conventional for a mobile which is
Ramzi Ab Rashid (0318716) Theory of Machines & Mechanism (TOMM) Assignment

cruising at low speed at a flat ground which would provide a good ratio between the torque and
the speed of the mobile. Elsewhere, during phase 6 or the sixth gear, the largest gear diameter and
number of teeth will provide a higher speed to the system with a lower amount of torque. This gear
is usually used for cruising. Elsewhere, the first, second and third gear shall be more available and
practicable when a large amount of torque are needed by the mobile for climbing purpose or having
to carry a larger load.

In term of reversing, a reversing gear train will also be used in the system. During reversing
process, the driving gear shall be connected with another gear in which an idler gear are imposed
to the gear train system. By doing this, the rotational direction of the driven gear shall be the
inversed of from the first to sixth gear which would provide a reversing torque to the automobile.

REFERENCES
[1] http://notesmaster5.blogspot.my/2013/10/to-study-inversions-of-4-bar-mechanisms.html
[2] http://www.meedtech.com/crank/
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_(mechanics)
[4] http://maelabs.ucsd.edu/mae_guides/machine_design/machine_design_basics/Mech_Ad/
mech_ad.htm